    [Patent document 1] JP-2006-199110 A (US 2007/257783 A1)    [Patent document 2] JP-H10-201001 A
Patent documents 1, 2 describe a vehicle presence notification apparatus. At the time of traveling of an electric vehicle or at the time of motor drive traveling of a hybrid vehicle, it may be desired that a person outside of the vehicle can recognize the presence of the vehicle approaching. To that end, an audio speaker is installed in the vehicle to thereby produce a notice sound outside of the vehicle such as a false engine sound and a false running sound for teaching the presence of the vehicle.
However, since the notice sound outputted from the audio speaker is diffused around, it may be heard by a pedestrian (for example, a pedestrian who is present in the back of the vehicle which advances forward) who is not present in the dangerous position, or a person who is in a vehicle compartment. Thus, the sense of discomfort may be given to other than a pedestrian who is present in the dangerous position.
In addition, in such a vehicle presence notification apparatus, a sound generated from the vehicle such as a noise from tires changes depending on a vehicle velocity. It is thus necessary to change the notice sound according to the vehicle velocity. Accordingly, necessary vehicle velocity information is conventionally acquired from a body ECU of the vehicle. However, this poses a problem to require time and expense in order to retrieve a vehicle velocity signal from the body ECU.